


Punishable by Death

by qvoro



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:30:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6433681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qvoro/pseuds/qvoro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hurtling towards Pandora in an escape pod was not how Rhys planned on spending his New Year's Eve. But there he was, with his boss's boss's boss's boss passed out in his lap, and Vaughn wasn't responding to his calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punishable by Death

**Author's Note:**

> ty to [thirtysixsavefiles](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirtySixSaveFiles), who gave me the prompt and my bro [gckaf](http://gckaf.tumblr.com) on tumblr for beta'ing (ง●ᴗ●)ง

Hurtling towards Pandora in an escape pod was not how Rhys planned on spending his New Year's Eve. But there he was, with his boss's boss's boss's boss passed out in his lap, and Vaughn wasn't responding to his calls.

It was all going so well, until twenty minutes ago.

Yvette had somehow managed to finagle  a trio of invites to the swankiest party on Helios. To Rhys's annoyance, Vasquez was also in attendance, but he was soon forgotten as the head of Hyperion sauntered in.

Rhys had seen him around Helios before, but tonight Handsome Jack looked...different. His usual jacket was missing and he wore a gold foil party hat, hanging around his neck by the string. The CEO floated around the room giddily, shaking hands with everyone and sampling their drinks. By the time Jack got to Rhys, he looked past due for a lie down.

Vasquez had spotted them by now, and Rhys supposed the man was _trying_ to get him in trouble. Why else would that asshole task him with getting Jack home safely? Rhys was barely able to support the man's weight, and Drunk Jack gave terrible directions.

The pair rounded the corner and Rhys greeted the endless corridor of emergency escape pods with dread. There was no chance that this was the right way to Jack's apartment. He stumbled as Jack suddenly grabbed his arm, and leaned against a pod for support.

"What's that noise?" Jack slurred, blinking slowly.

"Fireworks, sir. In the Hub of Heroism."

"Is it midnight?"

It wasn't, but Jack had ordered all of Helios turn their clocks ahead eight hours so the partying could start sooner. "Yes?" Rhys answered, unsure what Jack wanted to hear.

"Midnight. New Year's Eve," Jack started. "I guess we missed the countdown, but no biggie."

Jack shoved him against the pod and tried to kiss him, but he was tipsy and moving too fast and Rhys felt Jack's lips, scratchy and dry, against his throat. Jack mumbled something too muffled to be intelligible and seemed to settle on mouthing sloppily at Rhys's neck.

He felt saliva dribbling past the collar of his shirt, and Jack was way too warm and heavy and bitey. Rhys wanted to imagine Handsome Jack smelling of citrus or pine or whatever else goes into bottles of thousand dollar colognes, but it was just champagne and sweat and nothing else. The whole situation was decidedly unsexy.

It wasn't that Rhys didn't _want_ this, (he would never admit to anyone that as a teenager, he'd practiced kissing with a life-sized Handsome Jack poster on his bedroom wall) but he wanted more to not be shot out of an airlock the next morning.

Rhys took a deep breath and gingerly pushed back against Jack's shoulder, hoping he was too drunk to be offended. He immediately regretted this when Jack slammed a fist just to the right of Rhys's face. He heard a light 'click' followed by a cheerful 'beep boop,' and fell backwards as the pod door slid open.

He squeaked as he spilled into the too small pleather seat. Jack landed on top of him, hand brushing against a control panel, eliciting a series of musical chimes. _This is not happening_ , Rhys thought.

The reassuringly smug voice of the Hyperion virtual assistant came through the pod's speakers: _// The Hyperion Corporation wishes to remind you that unauthorized use of emergency escape pods is punishable by death. //_

"No no no no no no fuck no," Rhys cursed, panicking. "Stop. _Do not launch_."

_// Unauthorized use of naughty language in the presence of Handsome Jack is punishable by death. //_

Rhys mashed desperately at the control panel, but it was too late and the universe hated him. There was a brief moment of weightlessness before the pod's artificial gravity kicked in. Rhys groaned as Jack's bulk punched the air out of his lungs.

_// Kidnapping Handsome Jack is punishable by... you guessed it. Death.  Have a pleasant day. The kill squads will be deployed shortly. //_

"Fuuuuuuck."

"What," said Jack, blankly.

"We're in space."

"Yeah, babe?"

"Oh my god, we're in space," Rhys repeated.

"Wow, you're really buff, sugar," Jack marveled, touching the cybernetic arm through Rhys's suit. "And... angular." He nodded in approval.

"I need help. I need to call for help. I need Vaughn. And Yvette. And Mom. Oh my god." Rhys wrenched his arm from Jack's grasp and brought up the monitor. He let out a yelp when Jack covered the display with his own hand.

"You better not be thinking about anyone else while you're here with me," he whispered. He yanked at Rhys's tie with a growl, and to his surprise it popped off with a snap. Rhys froze.

Jack stared at the red silk in his hand silently for about a minute before collapsing against Rhys's chest in a fit of giggles. (Not that Rhys would dare to describe any sound coming out of Handsome Jack's mouth as a giggle. At least not to anyone but his best bro, and only from the safe distance of a different solar system.)

Rhys sat there wordlessly, and while it seemed like a long time to him, Jack fell asleep pretty much instantly. As gently as possible, he nudged the CEO to the side, freeing up his robo arm. He sent Vaughn and Yvette a few hundred more messages, making heavy use of exclamation points and reminding his friends that he would _not_ be able to bro fist or buy lunch if he was lost in the vacuum of space.

No reply.

Fuck. Rhys closed his eyes. The sight of Helios getting smaller and smaller was not what he needed right now.

He counted backwards from a hundred and played his favorite track of whale songs with his head-computer.

Rhys felt a little better now. His heart rate was back to normal-ish, and to be fair, the situation wasn't a complete disaster. Granted, he would probably go down in history as the man that single handedly caused the collapse of Hyperion by accidentally getting shot into space with Handsome Jack, but at least he got to kiss his idol (close enough). Plus, he didn't have to see Vasquez on Monday, so that was pretty good. He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

 

 

Rhys jerked awake to the sound of polite knocking. His echo eye focused on Vaughn, who stood at the door to the escape pod.

"Bro! You're alive!" he whispered, smiling and offering a thumbs up. "I kinda dropped my phone in a wine fountain and Yvette got _majorly_ laid and didn't see your texts until this morning so..."

"Vaughn. What--where are we? What planet is this?"

Vaughn raised an eyebrow. "Pandora? You didn't go very far."

"Oh."

"What happened with these guys?" Vaughn asked, pointing behind him. A dozen dead bandits and dead bandit body parts were scattered about the front of the pod.

"Wasn't me." Rhys glanced down and saw that Jack clutched a black Nemesis pistol to his chest. _When did...?_

"Eh. It's Pandora. This probably happens all the time! Is he, uh, alright?" said Vaughn, gesturing at Jack.

"Just sleeping. I think."

"Okay. Okay, good! I'll help the crew prep the ship for takeoff, and you can wake him up," said Vaughn, quickly. He departed with a small wave.

Rhys looked down again and sucked in his breath when he found Jack staring at him.

"You were prettier last night," Jack said, teasingly.

Rhys had no idea how to respond to that. "I--Was I?"

Jack took hold of Rhys's hand, and the holographic interface popped up. "For next year, I live riiiight here," he said, adding the initials HJ in a star to Rhys's navigator. "Now if you'll excuse me, pumpkin, I gotta go take a piss."

Jack stood up and left the pod with a small hop. Rhys stared at the star on the screen, wondering if this meant he was spared from death.

He let out a (tiny) scream as Jack reappeared at the pod door. "By the way," he said, "I never got your name."

"Rhys, sir."

"Rhys, huh? Weird, but whatever. I'm Jack. I'll see you later." He fired off his finger guns, blowing the smoke from one hand, and moonwalked out of view.

Rhys wanted to sleep for another week.

**Author's Note:**

> i do some draws on [tumblr](http://qvoro.tumblr.com/tagged/art%20tag) :)
> 
> gckaf also made some [phenomenal](http://gckaf.tumblr.com/post/142111447755/) [artwork](http://gckaf.tumblr.com/post/142133927925/) to go along with this


End file.
